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Tough To Bring Down

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

It’s college football preview week on the JLP blog featuring 2 stories in the new issue of ESPN the Magazine… what can I say, they rawk and I loves me some college football so here we go.

First up is a profile of returning Alabama running back, National Champ and Heisman winner Mark Ingram. Mark is rock fucking solid, truly a powerhouse who seems to be instinctually competitive in absolutely any sport, whether he’s ever played it before or not. My buddy, ESPN rockstar writer Alyssa Roenigk saw this in person as Ingram, wearing flip flops and using borrowed clubs, innocently rocketed 300+ yard drives while giving an interview (he was a high school phenom in golf as well). Mark also struck me as a nice, outgoing and thoughtful guy who happens to be right in the middle of one of the greatest moments in his life as The Biggest Thing in a state that cares an awful lot about its football.

Not uncommon for a ESPN shoot there was going to be a video crew there for the network, which though its usually not ideal it’s also not a big deal to me (if I’m doing my job right it doesn’t matter what else is happening). What my editor didn’t mention was that the video crew wasn’t just shooting along side of us doing their own piece on Mark… they were actually doing a behind the scenes on our shoot itself and I would be miced up and talking about my plan for the shoot, etc.. And that’s all good, but give me a head’s up!! As it is I’m totally unshaved, sweating my balls off in 100+ degree Tuscaloosa summer heat (plus insane humidity and a massive thunderstorm threatening of course) and carrying around a 30 lb. backpack (filled with one of my Hensel packs) that made me look like a Ghostbuster. But that’s life and here’s the BTS video featuring me and my assistant Brian:

Because Mark is truly the big man on campus at Alabama our plan for the shoot was to simply follow him around and let his celebrity draw a crowd of fans (hence my mobile Ghostbusters set-up, and Brian manning the mini-boom with a Softlighter II). The only small problem is of course we shot this in June, when Tuscaloosa is basically empty (it was actually finals week of summer session) so there were absolutely zero people on campus (plus its super gross weather). My idea, which was turned down flat by the university, was to send a tweet an hour before our shoot announcing that Mark would be around. We told Mark that idea and he got big eyes saying that would have been a total riot… so maybe it’s better that we didn’t.

Instead we had Mark all alone at iconic Denny Chimes, all the while searching the horizon for any people who might wander past (eventually one family did and we quickly recruited them just as our time was ending and the thunder began). As you can hear in the video I pushed a little on the Heisman thing (that’s my job) and got at least a dozen out of Mark (though I think the magazine wisely didn’t use them). We also talked about lone fumble during last season (vs. Tennessee) and it was pretty cool to see him totally switch gears and talk so earnestly about that mistake and sense his commitment to himself and his team it wouldn’t happen again. All in all it was a fun, sweaty shoot that didn’t at all go how it was planned, which is basically the name of the game in editorial photography.

Posted in Action, Media, New Work, Portraits | No Comments »

Conan

Sunday, January 24th, 2010

I too tuned into Conan’s last Tonight Show and have also marveled at the class he’s displayed during this media storm/NBC meltdown over the last two weeks. On Friday’s show he took a moment to step it up another level by not only being kind to his employer of so many years, but to also forcibly and emotionally beg any young people watching that cynicism and selfishness are not on the path leading to anywhere important. In this media & celebrity atmosphere we live in/under I thought it was pretty much a revolutionary statement, and certainly worth sharing here. I for one am taking it to heart.

Posted in Creativity, Media | 1 Comment »

Ouroboros

Sunday, January 17th, 2010

Found in the “things you might not know about John” folder: I really don’t like needles, thus I don’t have any tattoos. But if I did have a tattoo it would definitely depict the ancient symbol of a serpent eating it’s own tail, Ouroboros. I was thinking about the dragon today in relation to this new year and decade when a lot of us are feeling like we are on the edge of something different, new and old, devouring our past to stake out the future while simultaneously trying to strip away artifice and excess in an attempt to get back to the genesis of our creative energies. Whether its video, promotion, projects, or just your reading list – there is a palpable energy in the air this January that whatever has come before we are starting over again.

Last week I notched my first editorial gig of the decade (details TK) and even though I have shot for the client before and have shot many, many jobs like it over the past 7 freelance years, I was nervous waiting for the “thumbs up!” call from my editor. I knew I had worked hard, saw well, shot a ton of options, etc.; but still there was that feeling in my stomach. In a lot of ways that feeling is such a gift at this point in my career. That split-second sensation as the caller ID lights up where you go into super fast-forward of the whole shoot, every missed shot, out of focus frame, dodgy lighting cue, and awkward banter with the subject… and then of course they love it and are excited to talk about specific pictures they really dug and how they hope to publish more than they initially planned. But that feeling that you remember from the early days, the mistakes, the gambles that paid off…

Beyond the individual it’s not hard right now to see signs of Ouroboros everywhere: the publishing industry destroying itself before being reborn again with the Tablet?; or maybe the DSLR/HD video “revolution” stepping out of the ashes of newspaper multimedia?

The year might start slowly for many in terms of tangible work with clients themselves slow to get back behind their desks. But I feel like this January has already been 2 months long in the amount of thinking and re-thinking of photography goals, promotional approach, and personal needs. Being in your head can certainly become a problem but right now it feels important, what with the rapidly shifting photography world beneath us. Of course after this thinking I’m running out of the door to take pictures and when the calls do begin to pick up in earnest I’ll feel ready to sprint, tail or not.

Posted in Creativity, Freelancing, Media | 2 Comments »

Now, next

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

Hopefully by now you all have watched the new demos of Magazine 3.0’s (?) that have been released  lately (Wired, Sports Illustrated). Sigh. Even if you ignore the simple fact that they have been made for a platform that has not even been announced yet (have we ever seen so many major media companies tying their fates to Apple before? Because lets face it, only Apple is capable of delivering a game-changing new platform right now) we still have a few pretty big problems with the Next generation.  First of all, there is very little next to be found.

This is a 100,000 word discussion and I just don’t have the energy for all of that. So let me break it down in notepad form on what is keeping me up at night this week.

  • More shocking than how depressing that Wired video is (WTF is going on with the audio, are all magazines going to be read in techno clubs in the future?!), is that the concept is basically Advanced-PDF. Hold the phone… Wired is one of the best designed, most thoughtful magazines being published today, so how could their new product look like it was built on the following budget: 24 pizzas, 2 cases of Red Bull, 1 overtime weekend with 4 code monkeys and a bored assistant art director?
  • Before I saw the Sports Illustrated video (which I was impressed by), I first saw this link from TechCrunch… and in seeing just that picture of the SI page (looked a lot like looking up micro film in the public library, and even the page looked yellowed in the image as if it was really old) I almost lost my shit. Oh my god, oh my god, we are all doomed…
  • “Magazines are fucked, still” has been the prevailing comments from the Tech blogs I’ve seen in the past 24 hours… heavy use of sarcasm and “even if this didn’t suck” no one is going to pay for it, with a bunch of “content should be free” sort of bullshit as well. Guess what assholes, content is not going to be free and all of the little filter/bottom feeders out there from HuffPost on down are going to go into their own little tailspin as soon as the big media corporations put up pay walls to nearly all of their incredibly expensive content. So now you can’t just link and comment anymore… uh, oh, looks who’s fucked now.
  • Tablets aren’t coming out in the next 6 months, and we’ll probably be lucky to be waking up next to one covered in drool this time next year. But obviously with this sort of support and groundswell they are coming.
  • Tablets are going to be expensive and the only one making any money at all on them at all in the next year is probably going to be the hardware manufacturers.
  • I’m really excited for The New York Times to put up a pay wall… like today. I can’t wait to pay them for their incredibly well executed content. I’m so excited that I just bought a New Yorker digital-only subscription. A lot of us are… stop giving it away and allowing everyone else to build sites that just loot those links and rake in ad revenue.
  • If this Sports Illustrated mock-up is even 40% as hungry as the final release, the need for imagery, still and moving, is going up at Time Inc maybe 500% or more. This is why anyone signing a contract that gives away all digital rights for their work right now is going to be in huge trouble.
  • The only thing I liked about the Wired demo was that it looked like you could actually read the text, which is one of the worst things about reading on the internet now. Please build in a Kindle-like integrated text-only mode so that those few of us who actually read anymore can do so without ruining their vision.
  • Catharine P. Taylor wrote in her bnet “piece” this morning about the SI video that “it’s too late” for magazines… that’s bullshit. Catharine, you and every person like you, including me, and hundreds of millions of people around the world today, even more than yesterday or 5 years ago or 50 years ago wants to be informed, wants information, wants media. They want it on their own terms and they don’t want publishing to act like they are a bunch of moronic idiots who only want Hollywood gossip, a casserole recipe, and the jumble — but they want it.
  • And lastly I just want to remind all of the scholars out there delivering these sermons on the future of media and blah blah blah blah that you can’t begin the story from a flat, even plane. The story begins in hell, with buildings on fire and people straight-up scared. And from that place the bullshitting about social media has to be understood because we aren’t in fairy-land and bloggers aren’t necessarily adding anything at all to the conversation, or at the very least are rarely “experts.” It’s not about crafting a democracy of information… it’s about creating a better, more engaging, and more informative experience that runs on CONTENT.

Posted in Freelancing, Media, Writing | No Comments »

Dirty 305

Sunday, November 29th, 2009

popphoto1

As most of you know — because who doesn’t read Pop Photo & PDN cover-to-cover every month, right? – - John Loomis Photography was featured in both industry mags’ December issues.  First up, Popular Photography asks me “How to” (click on the image above to see it larger/clearer) in a re-cap of a Men’s Health assignment that I shot in Quantico, VA on evolving real-world training methods for the Marines.  The original concept of the how-to was to show my select and then a bunch of crappy frames (I make a lot of those) which missed the mark, illustrating how-not-to, but they instead wisely chose a direct approach.  Important tip included in the story: I get dirty.  Thanks to Pop Photo’s Debbie Grossman for reaching out to me, and to Men’s Health Michelle Stark, for giving me the job (and excuse to get dirty) in the first place.  For those interested, the rest of short piece is below:

popphoto2

Next up is Photo District News, who delivers an updated City Guide on Miami in their new issue, in which I’m quoted a few times – the most honest of which are not attributed, thanks Conor!  I haven’t seen the print edition yet, but if its fun and/or has a sweet pic by yours truly in there, I’ll update to let you have a nice chuckle.

Working in Miami continues to be love/hate for me, but I do appreciate it a bit more now that I spend most of my time in NYC.  The people, attitude, traffic, pretentiousness, and $$ are hard to deal with… but the weather is insane and local color & backgrounds can be fantastic if you know where to look, plus I like pork sandwiches a lot.  Purely photographically-speaking it’s not an easy place to be for any thing other than catalog or fashion shoots.  The local clients mostly pay terrible and demand the world, the pool of assistants is thin, and the photo gallery scene is non-existent most of the year (at least I’ve rarely seen signs of life outside of Basel).  But as I’ve said many times before, standing on the beach in mid-January, when the weather is a chilly 74, you feel like a genius.

Posted in Freelancing, Media, Promotion | No Comments »

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